Pynchon/Nabokov

[Peter Trachtenberg]

On Sun, 4 Feb 1996, Teen Age Riot wrote:

> At 08:27 PM 2/4/96 -0500, Ronkarate at aol.com wrote:
> >I've been wondering about the connection between Pynchon and Nabokov. Not
> >just the personal connection, but the similarity of themes that run through
> >many of both authors' works. 
> 
> Funny, as I recieved this message I was reading _Pnin_, my first exposure to
> Nabokov.  I'm not quite finished, but a fun book so far.  The most obvious
> connection I think would be both authors' insightful use of scientific
> metaphors.  Nabokov was some sort of trained scientist as well, wasn't he?
> Entomologist, or something?
> 
> Al
> __________________________________________
> al wang
> http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~alwang/home.htm
> talk request: alwang at random.resnet.upenn.edu
> 
> "What's My Solution?"
> "Noise Pollution!"
> 
> 
Nabokov's early pseudonym was "Sirin," and he was a very learned--if 
amateur--lepidopterist. Like TRP, he is particularly interested in 
transformation, a theme that recurs in LOLITA, ADA, and TRANSPARENT 
THINGS. Pynchon's vision of this theme is informed largely by physics, it 
seems to me, whereas Nabokov's governing metaphor is that of the nympth 
bursting from the cocoon: not so much transformation, as emergence